ISRAELIS PUT TOTAL OF RIOTING ARRESTS AT CLOSE TO 1,000

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The number of Palestinian youths arrested by Israel for suspected involvement in the recent wave of riots in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has risen to nearly 1,000, Israeli newspapers and military personnel said today.

Most of those Palestinians arrested since the rioting began Dec. 9 were rounded up in the last three days in what is believed to be one of the largest security operations mounted by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Army apparently used wiretaps, informers and videotapes of the rioting to identify Palestinian youths believed to have been involved in the disturbances. Warrants Issued by Army

Most of those arrested were picked up at their homes in West Bank and Gaza villages and refugee districts by squads of Israeli soldiers, who arrived at their doors at all hours of the day and night with arrest warrants issued by the army.

The situation in the territories was relatively calm today, but Israeli military personnel said that might have had more to do with the cold rain beating down across the country and the fact that the Jabaliya refugee district in Gaza, housing 65,000 people, had been virtually sealed by the army, than with any relaxation of the situation.

The Reagan Administration has condemned the harshness of the Israeli actions against the demonstrators. On Tuesday the United States refused to veto a resolution in the United Nations Security Council that ''deplored'' the Israeli crackdown. Israel Blames a Few Militants

Explaining which Palestinians were being arrested, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said in an interview published in The Jerusalem Post today, ''We are going after those organizers who have come into the schools, their faces masked, and forced pupils, often against their will, to riot.''

Mr. Rabin's explanation is consistent with the Israeli view that the Palestinian rioting over two weeks was caused by a minority of Arab militants who forced an ordinarily peaceful majority into the streets.

The breadth and intensity of the Palestinian riots, however, suggests that they were a much more spontaneous and popular phenomenon, and it is clear that the army is rounding up more than just a few organizers.

The Palestine Press Service, an Arab-owned news agency based in East Jerusalem and sympathetic to the Palestinian nationalist cause, said information gathered from its reporters in the occupied territories indicated that the number of Palestinians arrested since Dec. 9 on charges of incitement or attacks on Israeli soldiers was more than 2,000. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, however, put the number at almost 1,000, a figure confirmed by Israeli military personnel.

Up until now, Israeli Army spokesmen have refused to give a specific number of Palestinians arrested, saying only that ''hundreds'' of West Bank and Gaza youths have been detained. None of their names have been released.

Israeli officials have hinted that many of those arrested might be expelled, although none have been so far, an army spokesman said. A Jordanian Government spokesman announced in Amman today that Jordan ''will take appropriate measures'' to see that Israel does not expel Palestinian militants into Jordan. The spokesman did not elaborate.

So many Palestinians were arrested in the last four days that the Israeli Army has opened two makeshift prisons to hold them until trials can be organized, the Israeli military personnel said.

One of the prisons consists of a hastily erected tent camp surrounded by coils of barbed wire near the village of Dahariya, just south of the West Bank town of Hebron. The other is in a military compound situated inside Israel proper. The Ansar-2 prison camp in Gaza has also been expanded to accommodate the Gaza and West Bank residents arrested. Poll Shows Hard-Line Support

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A poll published today in the newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth showed that the Israeli public stood solidly behind the Government's ''iron fist'' crackdown, after two weeks of rioting left at least 21 Palestinians dead and about 170 wounded.

When asked how Israel should deal with the disturbances in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 69 percent of the Israelis polled favored a ''tougher stand,'' 23 percent favored the current policy and 7 percent called for a softer approach.

On the question whether Israel should expel Palestinians responsible for inciting the riots, 80 percent of the respondents said ''yes'' and 19 percent said ''no.''

Asked how the riots left them feeling, 47 percent said they were in a tougher mood, 25 percent said they were now more in favor of a compromise with the Arabs and 25 percent said they were not affected. Scores of Extra Judges

The army has summoned scores of extra judges and legal personnel for reserve duty to staff the military courts and conduct the investigations and trials, the army spokesman said.

The ages of those who have already been tried and convicted of incitement reportedly ranged from 17 to 30 years, and they received anything from one month to one year or more in prison. Others have been interrogated and released.

Palestinian lawyers in Gaza were reportedly boycotting the Israeli military trials on the grounds that lack of evidence against those accused was forcing the Israeli courts to exert pressure for confessions by offering anyone who pleaded guilty to incitement a one-month prison term and anyone who denied the charges and insisted on a trial a much longer sentence.

The violence in the West Bank and Gaza has provoked political unrest in the Labor Party. The party is being torn between a hard-line faction led by Defense Minister Rabin, and publicly supported by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and a more dovish group led by Ezer Weizman, a Minister Without Portfolio, and Abba Eban.

The Labor moderates are particularly incensed at what they call Mr. Rabin's ''out Likuding the Likud,'' by leading the crackdown on the Palestinians. They object to Mr. Peres's willingness to suppress his political debate with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the Likud bloc, over the future of the occupied territories so long as the Palestinian unrest continues. Election Due in November

Mr. Peres has expressed fear that to speak out now would expose him to charges from the hard-line Likud of being ''soft on the Arabs'' and thus damage his chances in the November 1988 elections.

Both Mr. Weizman and Mr. Eban have been urging the Labor Party leadership not to remain silent, but rather to use this opportunity to provoke a national debate about the territories and to emphasize Labor's own 1986 platform, which rejects permanent Israeli rule over the 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

A liberal Israeli political columnist, Yoel Marcus, wrote a stinging attack on Mr. Rabin and Mr. Peres today in the newspaper Haaretz, arguing that the two Labor Party leaders were now indistinguishable from Mr. Shamir. He said Israel was ruled today by the firm of ''Yitzhak, Yitzhak & Shimon.''

A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 1987, on Page 1001001 of the National edition with the headline: ISRAELIS PUT TOTAL OF RIOTING ARRESTS AT CLOSE TO 1,000. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe